Running, Cycling, Fitness Tips – The Inadvertent Athlete

Let’s go back to where it all began…

The genesis of my new blog. So much pressure. What the heck do I say? Let’s take it from the top.

Since I graduated college in the last century, I have basically been a lazy sack of crap. No, really. I didn’t do anything but work, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat. One day my daughter, who was 3 at the time, asked if I had a baby in my tummy. I looked down and AH CRAP! She was right. I wasn’t pregnant but I did have a big pot belly from indiscriminate eating choices over the past 10 years. I was fat and happy. In my prior life, before kids, wife and responsibility, I was painfully skinny, worked outdoors, and rode 30-50 miles a day after work. Metabolism of a hummingbird. 4.5 years of college, chicken wings and late night questionable behavior kicked that metabolism in the pants. Pile on a few more years of stress, kids, and life, and all manner of nastiness had broken loose on my once ripped abs. So, there I sat, demoralized by a little girl.

I decided to do something about it, or at least act like I was going to. I saw an infomercial for P90X that showed people that were, um… well, they used to be fat, OK? Now they weren’t. Being the skeptic that I am, I looked them up on the web and infiltrated their message boards. This had to be a load of crap. Sadly for me, I was presented with person after person after person with chronological evidence that this program actually did work. I broke down, ordered it, and jumped in feet first. I weighed 225 at the time. That’s not huge, but pretty big for me. I went hard core on the diet: No sugar, no white anything, if it tasted good I spat it out. I lost 20 pounds the first month. I went on to lose another 10 pounds throughout the rest of the program. Then it happened.

Around Christmas of 2007, I was hanging out on the message boards and saw a thread of cyclists. I loved to ride, back in the day so, I stopped in. They were talking about centuries (100 mile races) and I was feeling pretty good about myself so, I decided to get a bike and see if I still had legs. I did, kinda. 2 months later I rolled to the line of the 3 State 3 Mountain challenge in Chattanooga, TN. Barely back into fitness for 6 months, I was rolling out in a race that usually takes years of experience to tackle. In the pouring rain, and ensuing lightning storm, I rode through every emotion I had. I finished in 6 hours and change, happy, sore and completely trashed. 2 months later I found myself in Helen, GA, riding the Brasstown Bald Buster Century, 50 miles of pleasant, rolling hills, followed by another 30 miles of bigger rolling hills, followed by Hogpen Gap (a seven-mile, evil, torturous mountain that claimed much of my dignity and all of my remaining strength) only to face the devil himself at mile 100: Brasstown Bald Mountain. A 3 mile long mountain that rises some 4,600 ft into the sky. This mountain strikes fear into even the toughest of professionals. It is the sorting stage of the Tour de Georgia. Lance Armstrong said about Brasstown Bald: “They make mountains longer, but they definitely don’t make them any steeper”. Read a professionals review of this mountain here. I made it, barely. A couple hundred of us started the race, only 53 of us made it to the top. I was 10 from the end and really happy to have made it. I have blocked most of that race from my memory. It’s just too painful to recall.

At this point, you can see that I have a knack for biting off more than I can chew. That is what this blog is about:

I’m just a regular guy that has somehow found himself in the role of an athlete either by chance, stupidity, or some other nefarious force, and these are my adventures in trying to compete… nay, survive these ordeals.

Come hang out with me. I’ve learned so much along the way and I want to share that with you. I’ll be talking about nutrition, injury prevention, gear, and telling HILARIOUS tales of my fumbling through various events.

Should be fun…